Luxe Milonga — the new all-night milonga in Portland! Come join Remanda Xiang and Jenna Rohrbacher at this fresh, modern, and fun event!

Archive for March, 2011

We are happy to announce that renowned dancer and DJ Varo Boyajyan from Los Angeles for the April 30th Luxe Milonga!

An avid dancer himself, Varo has a deep appreciation for tango music as a crucial part of the overall milonga experience for each dancer.

As a DJ, Varo strives to create a musical atmosphere that inspires dancers and connects with them on the emotional level.

While DJing, Varo is always connected to the dancers–either by observing the energy and the interactions of the dancefloor, or dancing in the middle of it.

In addition to selecting good individual tango songs, Varo pays detailed attention to the structure of the playlist. He comprises the tandas and the relationship of tandas to each other to establish a harmonious flow of the energy, and to develop emotional-energetic contrasts with a tasteful climax and rise that resonate within each dancer.

Varo regularly DJ’s at milongas in Los Angeles and Southern Calfornia. He has DJ’d along with Otros Aires and Narcotango.

We wanted to say thank you for making February 26th the night that Portland, one of the best tango communities in the US, celebrated dance, friends, and fun at Luxe Milonga into the wee hours of the following morning!

We had about 120 tango enthusiasts join us that night, and a good group of out-of-towners from places like Seattle, LA, New Mexico, Eugene, etc. We have received so much positive feedback about the event; we deeply appreciate those who came, for it was YOU who made Luxe Milonga such an enjoyable night for everyone and such a rewarding experience for us!

We are certainly open to any suggestions or improvment feedback for future event! We really appreciate those who spent time sharing their feedback with us; we enjoy the journey of continuous improvement! To those who missed the event, we certainly welcome you with warm heart and big hug to our next event on Apr.30th!

Lastly but not least, we’d like to share our statement about our commitment to work with other local organizers and be proactively communicative about when we hold this event. We are deeply committed to serving the needs of the Portland tango community through hosting this milonga, and we want to continue to ensure that our communication of our event date will be a minimum of one month in advance. We will also keep the communication clear and open to avoid any miscommunication!

We deeply appreciate your support and feedback. Our hope is to make Luxe Milonga a fun and exciting venue in which we share our love of tango with everyone.

The only unclaimed lost and found item is a pair of eyeglasses from the Feb. 26th Luxe Milonga event. If you are the owner, please either post a comment on this post or email us at luxe.milonga@gmail.com.

First of all, I’d like to thank all of you for coming here tonight to dance and have a good time. I hope you have all been enjoying yourselves. If there’s anything you need, let me know.

There are two people I need thank for inspiring and encouraging me on creating Luxe milonga. They are Indian leader: Gandhi and my husband Brian. Gandhi has this famous quote: “Become the change you want to see!”. I have always been thinking woulnd’t that be nice to have an All-nighter milonga in Portland… His saying finally got me and I decided to “be the change” and my husband brian showed great support!

Jenna and I created this milonga so we could have a fresh take on the tango dance experience. We wanted to have it in a place that felt light, modern, and open, where friends could gather, have fun, and meet others to share a drink, some food, and perhaps a dance.

It took a lot of people to make this night happen and I just want to quickly mention them.

Thank you to Julio for working with us to create a great night of tango for Portland. We want to support and promote Argentine tango to Portland with this and other milongas, and we hope to continue working with other milonga organizers to make this happen.

I want to thank Jay Rabe, Wayne Williams, Mike Naus, Jim Labbe, and Christopher Duff for making the promotion and logistics of this event (and the floor) run so smoothly. We appreciate your help so much.

Thank you, Meng Wang, for your generous contribution, as a teacher, DJ, and dancer. You are becoming a permanent fixture for Portland dancing, and we cherish you dearly.

Thank you to Momo Smitt for sharing your world of tango lyricism. You are an amazing artist and bard, and Portland is so grateful for your stunning talent and warm presence. And Janalee Swain, thank you for sharing your smooth vocal stylings with us.

A huge thank you to Alex Krebs, a true ambassador to all things tango. Your support and generosity mean the world to all of us. You have touched the life of almost every person here in your quiet yet warm way, and we are so happy to have you here tonight.

Thank you to all the volunteers for your time, incredible effort, and your car. 🙂 You have made this night a great event, and we are so grateful to you for your help.

Jenna and I created this milonga so we could have a fresh take on the social tango experience. Our mission as to create an all-night party that people near and far could attend, in a place that felt light, modern, and open, where friends could gather, have fun, and meet others to share a drink, some food, and perhaps a dance.

Again, thank you all for coming and sharing this night with us. We are planning to have our next event April 30th, so mark your calendars and pick up a flyer at a table. We hope you enjoy yourselves tonight and want to share another terrific evening with us.

Now we will have our artists come out tonight to give us their wonderful gift of live music: Please welcome some of our most talented innovators of tango music in Portland: Momo Smitt on the mike, Janalee Swain on vocals, and Alex Krebs on the bandoneon and saxophone!